Musings on Greenwood

I have never been able to understand the opposition of certain groups in Canada to Sun Media’s news channel.

Over the past 30 years the Canadian media landscape has been littered with cutbacks, downsizing and failure. There have only been two aggressive strides within the media firmament towards expansion.

The first was the National Post. The second is Sun News.

The same groups that opposed both these initiatives cry constantly for more federal funding for the CBC.

This begs the question; why the double standard?

How could another conduit for news and information in this country possibly be a bad thing?

In reality, the people who oppose Sun News represent the old Canada; A nervous nation that feared competition, aggression and drawing attention to itself.

Sun News embodies the new Canada. It’s brash, flashy and confident.

I personally believe there is still a role for public broadcasting in modern society. I think CBC Television is lousy (with the stunning exception of Hockey Night in Canada) but CBC radio is excellent.

Regardless of one’s opinion of the CBC specifically or public broadcasting generically, why would anyone oppose the creation of a new Canadian media outlet?

I can’t see a downside unless you fear your world viewpoint may be challenged which is a terrible reason to oppose anything.

The article I’ve linked to in the title of this post encapsulates what I’m talking about.

Ezra Levant is a mixed bag. He’s a little too much of a neo-con for my liking. His courage going up against the Human Rights Tribunals deserves the praise of every Canadian yet he supported Jason Kenney’s absurd attempts to ban British MP George Galloway from entering Canada.

Regardless, Sun Media fired its opening salvo today by showing the Muhammad Cartoons on Levant’s new show.

This officially makes it the first news outlet in North America to show its solidarity with the free speech warriors in Europe.

Let me repeat that; Sun News is the ONLY mainstream media outlet in North America to stand tall against threats of violence from bronze age hoodlums and it’s less than 48 hours old.

In short, I wish Sun News all the best as it grabs the Canadian media establishment by its lapels and shakes off the dust that’s gathered over 30 years of deadlock and drift.

Ethan Rabidoux